The Gold Standard initiative is designed to raise standards in digital advertising by addressing three key issues facing the industry – ad fraud, brand safety and intrusive creatives that impair user experience and drive adoption of ad blockers. It does this by certifying compliance with three existing industry initiatives: ads.txt, JICWEBS DTSG and the Coalition for Better Advertising’s Better Ad Standards.

The certification comes with news that ads.txt adoption on Rubicon Project’s platform is at an all-time high, with over 95% coverage of web inventory worldwide. In July, as part of Rubicon Project’s ongoing commitment to offer only high-quality inventory to its buyers and drive fraud out of the ecosystem, it automated the enforcement of ads.txt, when present, on Rubicon Project’s exchange.

Tim Elkington, CDO, IAB UK, said of the certification: “IAB UK is committed to building a sustainable future for digital advertising – the IAB UK Gold Standard is a key element of this vision. Reducing ad fraud, improving the consumer’s digital advertising experience and increasing brand safety are the three cornerstones of the initiative and we’re obviously encouraged to see Rubicon Project achieving certification.

John Clyman, VP Engineering, Marketplace Quality & Security, Rubicon Project, added: “We’re excited to earn the Gold Standard certification, acknowledging our longstanding commitment to provide a safe, trusted marketplace. We’re even more excited by future opportunities to increase confidence and transparency for buyers and sellers through initiatives like ads.txt support in mobile apps, Payment ID, and bidstream signals that further highlight the value of the premium inventory and high-quality demand in our marketplace.”

Stephen Wing, MD UK & Nordics, Rubicon Project also commented: “While we are very proud to continue to improve our brand safety and transparency pedigree, we hope that initiatives like the Gold Standard will soon be table stakes in the industry. As we have seen with the tremendous success of ads.txt, the more we make best practices the standard expectation, the better it will be for the industry, all its participants and ultimately the consumer.”

About Rubicon Project

Founded in 2007, Rubicon Project’s mission is to keep the Internet free and open and fuel its growth by making it easy and safe to buy and sell advertising. Rubicon Project pioneered advertising automation technology to enable the world’s leading brands, content creators and application developers to trade and protect trillions of advertising requests each month and to improve the advertising experiences of consumers. Rubicon Project is a publicly traded company (NYSE: RUBI) headquartered in Los Angeles, California